Anyone who knows me knows me knows that a fair percentage of my thoughts is devoted to dinosaurs, and another chunk to my friends—that's why Dino Day is such a perfect moment in time. The 2nd Annual Dino Day was a lot different than the first—for one thing my television is three times as big, and we ended up with a crowd that was about triple-sized, too. Around 11 o'clock, Beef and Joe showed up and we popped in Denver the Last Dinosuar. Twelve hours later we'd had almost twenty people here to watch Denver, DinoRiders, the Dino parts of King Kong, Carnosaur, and the Jurassic Park triology. Several pounds of Dino cookies, fruit snacks, popsicles, chips (okay, these were just chips) and cake had been consumed.

The most important thing to me, though, was being part of an old-fashioned "Union guys cracking jokes until I wet my pants" hoedown, during the equally laughable Lost World. I've been busting my ass the last month (on stuff I'm hoping I'll actually get to talk about soon), and I badly needed that. Anyway, it was rad, and if you were there you're rad, and if you missed it you're slightly less rad than you may once have been. Fortunately, there are always more Dino Days on the horizon. Here are some awesome pics:

Labels: Dinos, Generalness

Yeeeeaaaaaaaaaa, it's the second annual Dino Day, my friends. That can only mean one thing: tons of dino movies, tons of friends, tons of dino snacks, and so much fun you just might have your head bitten off.

Sweet! I'll post a recap/pics after the fact.

Labels: Dinos, Generalness

The Tyrannosaur stalks the swamp, head bobbing back and forth among the trees. Her legs are so powerful they move the earth as she steps. The claws on her feet are so big and sharp they scar the earth wherever she moves. She hears something coming her way, breaking low branches as it comes. She opens her maw and screams, a roar that shakes the trees that dare stand before it. The rustling stops. Then it starts again, moving away from the Tyrannosaur. It is the late Cretaceous, but she does not know that. It is 80 million years before the birth of a man she won’t ever hear of.

She turns her towering frame towards the rustling, and decides to follow it. She does not bother to try to be quiet, or disguise herself in any way. Her brain isn’t big enough to discern what creature she heard rustling just from the sound, but it doesn’t need to be. She is bigger. She is faster. She is stronger. She’s proved her supremacy time and time again in bloody, skin-ripping battles, with monsters bigger and smaller than she is. With every step she’s closing in on her quarry, now. It is not big. It is less than half her size, and the fear is coming off of it so strongly that the Tyrannosaur can see it, like heat waves. She will make this fast. She is not hungry, nor are her children. She is the ruler of the world. She is bored.

* * *

Doug leaned on his cane and stepped over a dusty red rock. His knee was aching already, and the team he was volunteering with had only been out prospecting for two hours. There were at least ten more hours under the Montana sun before they bunked back down, at the cabin where Doug could eat, and shower, and stretch his bad leg out, and read his book before he fell asleep. Doug wasn’t unhappy, though, he was out here for fun, in this miserable badland in the Hell Creek formation. His wife had brought him on his first dig the year before, as a fiftieth anniversary present, and she’d made him promise he’d come back this year, even though she wouldn’t be able to come with him.

A little sand-colored horned toad scurried across the heat-baked soil in front of him. He batted at it playfully with his cane, flipping it over. The toad righted itself and ran away. Doug smiled, then squatted painfully to examine the rock pile at the base of the hill. The sun caught a glimmer off of something Doug recognized, and his heart beat just slightly faster. He picked the claw up: it was the pes claw of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He recognized it from Doc’s lecture at the cabin the night before. It was in surprisingly good condition for being in a runoff pile, and Doug called Doc over excitedly. He felt the grooves on the side of the claw, where the tendons would have been, able to slash with astounding ferocity. Norman set his cane down beside him, and ran his fingers over the point of the claw. It was still sharp. He shuddered a little, despite the heat.

Labels: Dinos, Stories

[As mentioned below, the first half of this story is a word for word, typo for typo transcription of a story I wrote in first grade, while attending Young Writer’s Camp at CSULB. It was mysteriously left unfinished, so I’ve written an ending in commemoration of Dino Day]

When Mrs. Stephanie opened the door, out burst a dinosaur Mrs. Stephanie screamed the dinosaur roared. The class and the teacher raced to the back door but it locked and the tirannosaur then was running toreds them but right at that moment a pice seling fell in front of the teacher and she had gotten eaten buy the dinisour all of the kids wher even more scared now. Then all the kids thought the computers and elcherict the dinosouer so then every body had to leave the college. But one teacher never made it out and her name was Mrs. Stephanie.The next day the children had a new teacher named Mrs. Canter she was a nice teacher and fun to have as a teacher.

Mrs. Canter had heard of what had happened to poor Mrs. Stephanie and when she opened the door she saw a t-rex’s head Dustin decided to scare her with a fake dinosaur head. Mrs. Canter screamed, Dustin took the mask of and the teacher kept screaming and Dustin turned just in time to see the real t-rex gobble him up. Thenthe dinosaur disapered. Mrs.Canter breathed a sigh of relief that she had not been eaten but she did’nt want to take any more chances so she quit and no one else wanted to either except one person and that person was Mrs.Anderson when she opened the door she saw Ari lying dead on the floor every kid in the class was bent over him some were crying over his death but every body was thinking the same thing who was next? Who would be the next victim to the hungry dinosaur. They found out the next day, it was Tim everyone was scared so fat three campers and a teacher. Who would die next.

* * *

Rick Stephanie was mad as heck. The bureaucrats at the local college were still giving him the run around as to what had happened to his wife, Stephanie Stephanie, who was teaching there. She hadn’t been home in two weeks, and Rick couldn’t get anyone from the school to tell him anything about what she’d been doing at school the day she disappeared. Finally, Rick, a professional big game killer, decided to take matters into his own hands, loading up his favorite shotgun, which was as big as one of his legs.

He stalked around the campus, shotgun hidden in a hockey gear bag he carried over his shoulder. On his second pass, he noticed a small trail of blood at the bottom of a concrete stairwell on the side of the sociology building. He hustled down the stairs and kicked the door open. Light fell across eyes that clearly hadn’t seen any in days. Rick was horrified by what he saw: two dozen kids, all pale as a sheet, sitting upright in their plastic desks, staring straight ahead. A few of the kids had wet themselves.

There was a closet in the front of the room; that’s what they were staring at. Rick went to open the door. A few of them screamed, but it was too late to stop them. What looked to him like a pygmy T-Rex burst out, and he emptied a shot into it, killing it instantly. The kids all ran out the door and up the stairs, before Rick could ask them what was going on.

The back wall of the classroom was a giant mirror; Rick kicked through it and stepped gingerly into the hidden room behind it. The room was empty, except for a bank of video monitors, showing the classroom from various angles, and a stack of handwritten notes. Rick grabbed the notes and got out as quickly as he could, tracking Tyrannosaur blood all the way to his Jeep.

Labels: Dinos, Stories

Dino Day couldn't have gone better. Phil, Kobes, Jayj, Vince and Beef were all here for over six hours of dino goodness, and now I'm watching the Suns/Spurs game on TNT while I work on my special Dino Day story. I highly encourage everyone to start their own Dino Day, or to attend the next one. Really one of the most fun days I've had in a while. The story I'll post later, by the way, will be in two halves: the first, I wrote in first grade, and I'll do my best to preserve all typos and incomprehensible spellings. The second half will be written by 23-years-old-but-still-fascinated-by-dinos Mike. What a great day. Thanks to everyone who came, and to Shar, the patron saint of Dino Day.

Labels: Dinos, Generalness

Welcome...to Jurassic Park!

Today is the first annual (or bi-annual, or whatever) DINO DAY! Dino Day was hatched, like a velociraptor, from Ryan Kobane's and my mutual love for Jurassic Park and all things Dino. In celebration, I've taken the day off all responsibilities (the first day I've done that this calendar year), with the exception of posting a story here. We, and any other friends who want to join us, probably a half dozen or so, will be watching the JP trilogy in its entirety, as well as snacking on gummy dino snacks, popcorn, Welch's grape juice, and other assorted munchies. I will also do a dramatic reading of my 1st grade horror story about dinos, which I may post here later this evening. I'm wearing one of my paleontologist shirts, and there are dino toys for the first people to arrive; so if you love dinos and you're not doing anything today, stop by for a bit. Just don't let the T. Rex in the corner get you.

Labels: Dinos, Generalness